Getting There Was All The Fun.

This morning greeted me gently, with the warm Miami sun peeking around the small crack I had left in the blinds. I had done that deliberately as I have a horrible tendency to oversleep when I don’t see any natural sunlight. It worked a charm and I was up early enough to make a trip down to Key West viable. Packing up everything I’d need for the day I called the desk to have the valet bring my car around and set about planning the last few details of the trip. I had a couple sites in mind but mostly I was just hoping for a scenic route and maybe a decent beach to have a dip in. This heat was starting to take its toll.

After quickly refuelling I punched in one of the street addresses down in Key West and started following the route. Initially the drive was a bit disappointing as it was basically just a road through the mangroves but I about 30 minutes after getting out of the city limits I was greeted with my first long bridge spanning about half a mile. I was pretty impressive how it rose up from basically nothing but it wasn’t anything to write home about. Along the way though there were some very impressive examples of both past and present, piquing my curiosity. I went to explore a few of them.

This was one of two massive bridges that hasn’t been in use for quite some time. The first section on either side had been removed probably to stop people from trying to use them. Interestingly though not one other sections had fallen into the ocean below signalling that apart from the fact that it’s made of wood it was a pretty stable structure. The other one of these also had 2 sections removed but not at both ends, just at one and another towards the middle. Just before that removed section was a small island with about 5 houses on it. I haven’t had the chance to look it up but it might be some kind of attraction as there were several people walking to and from that little place on that old bridge. I gave it a pass as it was a good 2 mile walk to it and I had a total of 7 hours of driving to do today, not a lot of time for lolly-gagging.

As for Key West itself? Well there wasn’t a heck of a lot to it at first glance, just a bunch of resorts and the shops that would go along with them. It felt a lot like Bateman’s Bay sprawling out in all directions with a good population calling the place home. I headed down to South Beach to see the southern most point of the United States. The beaches were unfortunately nothing amazing and my adventures on the way down had chewed up a lot of daylight so I decided to leg it back to the hotel. Winding my way out I came across the main street that I had managed to somehow miss on my in and it was alive with people. All the shops were decked out in Halloween decorations and it seemed like everyone had somewhere to be. Had I had more time I would’ve spent a couple hours there but my previous adventures had left me tired and wanting for a good sleep, so I headed off back home.

Overall today was pretty uneventful when you compare it to my last few days here in the US. Still it was nice to take the Corvette for a drive and explore some of the relics of days gone by, even if the heat sapped every bit of my strength when I dared to step out of my air conditioned heaven. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do tomorrow, but since my camera died before taking a single picture today I’m probably going to spend tomorrow indulging my photographic nerd. There’s no lack for subjects here either so it could be quite the day.

I did get to enjoy a sunset though 🙂